Hopelessly Devoted
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: It was all Tony's fault. His damn meddling had not only landed Captain America the girl of his dreams, a ready made family complete with a 3yr old little girl, but it had also placed them all in grave danger. Thankfully Steve is a soldier unlike any other ever made, and more than up to the task of taking care of his new family. Steve Rogers/OC. Rated M. First Avengers story. R&R!
1. Chapter 1

It was Tony's idea.

His stupid, dumbass, obsessively-compulsively driven, _best friend_ \- Tony Stark- had finally pulled him aside after only two in a half months of mourning Peggy's death, and had told him to go out to a local bar and pick up a girl or two...dozen, and work out some of his anger and frustrations about how things had gone down with his old girlfriend through some rough sex.

The only real problem with that was he, Steve Rogers- a.k.a Captian America- super soldier elite, didn't do rough sex. Under any circumstances.

Mostly because he was far too old fashioned and his values coupled with his super strength prevented him from being rough with someone outside of his work as an Avenger. After all, the last thing he needed was to pick some random girl up, go home and start getting...uh... _frisky_? And accidentally snap the poor woman in half.

Like literally.

So just like every night for the past two weeks, he attempted to follow Tony's advice (with a few modified tweaks, of course) and just like every other night, he paid his tab, waved bye to the bartender and left feeling a sense of disappointment. And perhaps a little seething rage that was quickly beginning to boil within his blood.

Making him want to deck Tony and break his damn jaw the next time he saw him.

But he would never do that. Not to Tony, despite how annoying or annoyed with the man proved to be, or he became with the situation. After all, it wasn't like Stark had twisted his arm and made him come out to the bar tonight or the other nights before.

Still, he did wish that Tony had taken into consideration just how difficult it was for him to find someone suitable enough to even consider a relationship with.

It was practically a nightmare because his old fashioned, gentlemanly tendencies, coupled with his Avenger statis proved to be somewhat a pain to deal with.

Everyone knew his name, knew that he was an Avenger.

But they didn't _know_ him. And he longed for someone to know him. To know the little things that he found pleasure in and share them with him. He'd had that with Peggy. And would no longer settle for anything less.


	2. Chapter 2

The banging on his door woke him up bright and early the next morning.

And by early, Steve meant barely an hour in a half after he had crawled into bed and finally managed to go to sleep. Groaning he rolled over onto his side and attempted to block out the sound of the banging with his pillow by placing it over his head and holding it against his ear.

Which only worked for several moments to drown out the sound before Jarvis turned the lights on in his room and he felt the overpoweringly irksome presence of a familiar person standing next to his bed.

 _Dammit Tony!_ He thought in aggravation.

That was it- he was going to murder the genius for waking him. And then he was going to hunt down Thor, make him shock him back to life with his lightening and then he was going to murder him again! The man had done this to him every night for the past two in a half weeks. And while it had been somewhat endearing at first, it was now just an aggravation that he wished would go away.

Growling low in his throat, Steve flung his pillow towards where he could sense Tony standing and wished it were something heavier and more lethal than...well, something stuffed with feathers.

Tony however just swatted the pillow away, leaving it to land on the floor about two or three feet from the bed as he asked almost manically, "Where is she? She's here right? I wanna see her. Where is she?"

Heaving a tired sigh, Steve took a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose between his fingers in an effort to stave off a headache that he felt forming as well as the irresistible urge to roll his eyes in dismay.

It looked like Tony had come this time fully loaded.

On coffee.

The technical genius was practically vibrating where he stood, he was so hyped.

"That's it Tony," Steve said as he slowly tossed his covers off and began to get up. "I'm going to tie you to the building flagpole, go back to sleep, and then when I get up in the morning I'm going to _break_ every coffee and expresso machine in the building." Steve said as he reached out to grab Tony only to have the slippery little jerk escape him and begin to systematically run around his room while he rambled.

"Is she in the closet? The shower? Under the bed? Where is she?"

Steve let him check everywhere that a person could hide in his room since he knew that it was the only way to get Tony out of his room and away from him much quicker. Tony finally came to a complete she total stop and looked at him in puzzlement before asking, "No girl?"

God it was like he was dealing with a child sometimes. Especially when Tony was hyped up, he tended to revert to two word questions that only a caveman would understand.

"No," Steve replied as calmly as he could. "No girl. And even if there was one- I wouldn't let you within a mile of her." Steve said as he stared Tony down, not bothering to lie about how he felt about introducing a potential girlfriend/lifemate to his friend.

Tony was eccentric on his best day. Overwhelmingly annoying on his worst.

That along with the knowledge of his playboy ways- especially around married and engaged women- just firmly cemented in his mind that Stark should not be allowed anywhere near his potential girlfriend/lifemate.

After all he didn't wish to go to the trouble of finding someone for himself only to have Tony accidentally turn on his charm and 'charm' them right out of their panties and his life.

As far as he was concerned, Tony could meet his girlfriend/lifemate once they had a few kids and she became paranoid that certain things were sagging.

 _Yeah, that works._ Steve thought as he folded his arms over his chest and waited, only slightly patiently for Tony to finally leave. And when he finally did, Steve sighed knowing that he wouldn't be getting back to sleep anytime soon and decided to make good on his threat to destroy all of the coffee and expresso machines in the building.

After that was done and he had ruined the last machine via crushing it with his bare hands, Steve then looked out one of the windows that made up the sides of the building to guage the time and noted that the once inky black sky was slowly turning a nice dark purple.

Meaning that he had been at his currently completed task for a while now.

Probably because he had enjoyed breaking the machines a little too much. After all, he needed to keep Tony away from those blasted things if he was going to be catching up on his sleep over the next few days. Which would give him the rest of the day free to run training simulations with the others.

But first- to break a thing or two or three in Tony's lab. And then he would be off to breakfast to watch the fireworks from every coffee drinking Avenger in the building. Chuckling softly to himself at the thought of Clint and Tony laying on the floor pretending to be dying without their morning fix, Steve decided he should hurry before he missed the show.

(*********************************************************************************************************************************************)

Several blocks away at Congressman Alexander Thornton's vacation home-

Willow Thornton, adopted daughter of Alexander Thornton, had just got out of the shower to get ready for the day when she remembered that she hadn't called her adopted dad to check up on her three year old daughter, Kylie just yet.

Glancing over at the small digital clock next to the bed that she slept in while staying at her dad's vacation home, she grabbed her cell from the bedside table and flicked it open to call her dad only to notice that he had called her several times during yesterday and last night.

Curious about what had been so important, she quickly dialed her voicemail and then put the phone on speaker so that she could brush out her mid back length wine red hair and get dressed.

The first message was to let her know that he was going to busy and might not be able to answer his cell if she called. The second message was to inform her that he had finished work early and was going to pick Kylie up from daycare and go do something fun with his granddaughter.

The third message was a little panicked sounding because apparently her daughter had started running a small fever and he wasn't sure if he could get her in to see a doctor before her fever got too high.

The fourth message was a little while later, and her dad managed to get Kylie in to a doctor's office where she got a shot, a loli pop and he had been advised to give her lots of juice and medicine (as long as he followed the directions of course).

He joked about how she would hurt him if he accidentally overdosed Kylie. Which made the young woman just want to bang her head on something as she made the mental note to never let him babysit her daughter again until the kid was old enough to actually _run_ from him whenever he had a bad idea.

Sighing, she pressed the button to end the rest of the voicemails and then dialed her dad's number and let the phone ring several times as she waited for him to pick up.

Finally after what must have been a minute or two, Alexander picked up the phone and answered. _"Hello?"_

"Hi dad. So- is my kid still alive or do I need to make arrangements to get rid of a body?"

A nervous sounding chuckle sounded from the other end of the line before he replied, _"Kylie is fine. Her fever finally broke earlier this morning when I last checked on her and I was just about to feed her some cream of wheat with a side of orange juice."_

"Well that's something at least." Willow muttered.

 _"Yeah, my life is safe another day."_ Alexander said.

"Don't be too sure dad. Today is a _new_ day, and there is a lot that could go wrong." Willow pointed out, no longer either worried or upset with her father.

 _"Please don't jinx me,"_ _Alexander pleaded before asking, "How's work going? Will you be coming home soon? You know that Kylie and I miss you right?"_

"I miss you guys too. Hopefully I should be able to come home soon."

 _"You didn't say how work was."_ Alexander said, his tone all at once both demanding and inquisitive.

Willow tried to think of a way to reply to his question without telling him everything that had happened in the past week or so when all of a sudden she heard a loud crash coming from down stairs. Jerking her head in the direction of the door, she narrowed her teal colored eyes as she quickly took her dad off speaker and held the phone in her hand as she slowly left the bathroom and moved towards the bedroom door and stuck her head out and listened for a moment.

She could vaguely hear the voices of several intruders.

Two, three, no- five. Shit! She thought as she slipped back inside of the bedroom and quietly closed and locked the heavy solid wood doors. She knew that she had very little time to act, after all the door would only keep them out for so long.

Moving faster than she had ever thought that she could, she quickly pulled out her duffle bag from the closet and then grabbed as many of her clothes as she could and stuffed them in her bag along with two pairs of running shoes, and her wallet.

Then went back to the closet and opened up the small gun safe in there and pulled out several stacks of money and grabbed the 9mm that she kept locked in there and then closed it again so that even if the room was searched- the contents of the safe would be nothing more than a big question mark to whoever had just broken in. Once she was done with that she grabbed her car keys and a jacket and the duffle and then quickly moved over to the window.

On the phone she could hear her dad calling for her and while she wanted to answer him and let him know that she was okay, she couldn't promise that right now. She needed to get out before the people downstairs made their way up to her room.

Climbing out the window, she carefully made her way to a tree that she used to climb as a little girl and threw herself at one of the branches as she heard a loud crash behind her. Probably from her bedroom.

Her heart pounding in fear, she decided not to stick around to see if anyone had noticed that she wasn't in the room and quickly made her way to the ground where she then took off running for her car.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Daddy, I won't be coming home for a little while." Willow said into the phone as her dad finally stopped yelling for her to answer him. She could hear the faint sound of Kylie crying somewhere in the background and felt a sharp pain in the vicinity of her heart as she thought about her poor baby being without her for much longer._

 _Especially since leaving her daughter with her dad any longer meant that she was pretty much tempting fate._

 _"Tell me what's happening? What was that sound from before?" Her dad demanded in an uncommonly clam tone as she quickly replied,_

 _"No! The less you know the safer that you and Kylie will be."_

 _"Willow,"_

 _"I said no dad! Just forget that you got this call, if anyone asks about me- act as if you haven't heard from me in months. It'll help keep you and Kylie safe until I can figure out-" She was about to say until she could figure out a way to settle things so that she could come home when her dad suddenly said._

 _"I'm calling Tony."_

 _Causing her blood to pretty much freeze in her veins. Oh-no! No, no, no, no!_

 _He wouldn't! He couldn't!_

 _The line went dead and Willow swore a blue streak. Son of a bitch! He would, and just had apparently hung up on her for the sole purpose of calling her godfather, Tony Stark._

 _"Crap, crap, crap," Willow muttered to herself as she pulled into some random area and parked her car as she hung up the phone and then quickly dialed her godfather's number- hoping against hope that she could busy Tony's personal line before her dad's call could get through._

(**********************************************************************************************************************************)

Tony was just about to adjurn his meeting with the others to go lock himself in his lab and nurse the caffeine headache from hell after a semi nightmarish morning of being deviled relentlessly by Steve when his cell suddenly started playing Crazy Bitch, indicating that his goddaughter Willow Thornton was calling him.

Possibly for the usual reason she called him for.

To act as a mediator between the pissed off red head and her congressman dad.

Flushing a little bit as everyone stared at him, he gave a slightly awkward sounding laugh and then slipped his cell out of his pocket and flipped it open.

"Hello."

"I'm only going to say this once and I expect you to actually listen," Well, okay then. No pleasant hello's for him. Just an angry sounding red head that had a temper to rival the Hulk's talking to him. "Are you listening?" The feminine voice on the other end of the line snapped at him, making him inwardly cringe.

The last time he'd heard that tone from Willow was the time he had gone to see her for her birthday and accidentally caught her sunbathing without her top on.

She had not only been pissed enough to grab him and throw him into her dad's pool but had actually attempted to commit murder. and when that hadn't worked she had let him out of the pool so that she could bloody his nose and ream him for a good thirty minutes.

And man had she been brutal about it. So naturally when he heard the words, 'Pay attention.' coming form her, he tended to do just that even if it didn't seem like it to everyone else around him.

"Yeah, I'm listening." He said as he waited for her to tell him what she wanted.

"Good, now listen and follow my orders to the letter. Dad is going to call you," He opened his mouth to ask why when she hissed out, "Shut your mouth." Which he did automatically out of self preservation. "When he calls you, he's going to tell you something, you aren't going to like-" Again he opened his mouth to ask her something and again she hissed at him like a little snake before going on to say, "When he calls tell him what he wants to hear and then hang up. Don't you dare involve yourself in this, Tony. Or else." After that the line went dead and he took it away from his ear so that he could scowl at it .

 _Well...that was...weird_. Tony thought just a second before his phone started to ring again, the dial tone this time was Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue. Alexander Thornton's favorite song.

Sighing because he didn't really want to lie to his friend without figuring out first just what the hell had Willow chomping at the bit like she was. Flicking his phone open again, Tony put it against his ear and once again answered with a polite sounding, "Hello."

"Tony! Tony something's wrong! _Something'shappenedtoWillowandIcan'tgethertotellmeanything!"_ Alexander's panicked voice said from the other end of the phone in a rush.

Momentarily taking the phone away from his ear to scowl at it, again. Tony then placed it back to his ear and did his absolute best to try and calm Alexander down while attempting to ignore everyone else's eyes.

I mean really, didn't the others have anything better to do than sit in his conference room and listen in on _his_ phone conversations? And if not- well, there were sneakier ways of doing so. And several of his team were really good at being sneaky.

"Tony did you hear me?!" Alexander's tone took on that weird high pitched sound that almost made him sound like a girl shrieking, thus bringing Tony out of his thoughts and back to the present.

"I heard you, dammit. Now calm your ass down and tell me what the hell your going on about. And speak slower please, I don't understand Alexander grade gibberish."

"Something is wrong, Tony. I got a call from Willow this morning and everything was fine until-"

"Until what?"

"Will you please be quiet and let me finish speaking." Alexander snapped irritably causing Tony to once again scowl at his phone before he began to listen to his old friend go over the morning's events and what had happened to Willow to cause him to panic like he was. And by the time he was finished explaining everything, Tony was thoroughly convinced that his goddaughter was up to her pretty little neck in trouble.

He told Alexander that he would send a security team over to the vacation home and check it out and then he would personally hit the streets to go find Willow and then walked out of the room without so much as a word to his team.


	4. Chapter 4

The moment that Alexander hung up the phone, Tony dialed Happy's number and told him to grab a few of his best people and to head over to his friend's vacation home.

When Happy asked why, Tony got a look on his face that could have frozen a person's blood in their veins as he said, "Something has happened to Willow." After hinting at this, Happy knew _why_ he was needed and automatically rushed to do as Tony said.

After all if Mr. Stark's goddaughter was involved, then obviously they needed to work fast to see what the hell she had gotten herself into this time.

The moment that Tony was done telling him to make sure that he was thorough, he then said that he was going to hack the security monitors for the home and see what the camera's had caught and then hung up the phone only to find that Steve and the others were still present in the room.

Each of them staring at him curiously as he snapped impatiently at them, " _What?_ I have things to do that don't include indulging you eavesdroppers." And with that, each of the Avengers shared a glance. You know the one that indicated that they were communicating telepathically or something, and quietly got up from the table where they held their meetings and left, with the exception of Steve, whom had decided for some god forsaken reason to hang back and speak to him.

"Tony-"

"Not now Steve." Tony said as he walked away, hoping that he could make it to the nearest elevator so that he could go to his lab and lock himself inside before Cap. could stop him. However Steve merely walked passed him to the elevator and before he could so much as say 'no, don't' had ripped the panel with the button out and was crushing it in his hand as he turned to him with a semi pleasant smile and said,

"Now we can talk while we walk." While Tony could do nothing more than gape at him for his audacity. Honestly his favorite Cap. Cicle was beginning to cost him a small fortune in repairs!

Did the man have no shame?

As it was he and everyone else would be deprived of coffee for at least the next three days after he had so mercilessly gone from floor to floor breaking all of the coffee/cappuccino machines in the building!

"W-Wha- Why would you- What is _wrong_ with you?" Tony snapped after floundering for a moment for something to say. Steve just folded his arms over his broad chest and stared at him pointedly as if to say whatever was wrong with him was entirely his fault as Tony said, "Great, just great. I have to get to my lab. And now I have to take the stairs. Are you happy now? Time is of the essence and there is a _life_ on the line and I have to take the damned stairs! If you weren't my favorite Cap. Cicle, I'd toss your sorry ass out of my building!" Tony ranted as he shook his fist at the man.

Steve looked less than impressed as he asked in a bored tone. "You and what army?"

"Me and my army of minion hi-tech suits! That's what army, now get out of my damned face! I have shit to do." Tony growled at him as he stomped off towards the stairs as Steve silently followed along behind him. Wondering just what the hell had Tony so riled.

It couldn't have been the lack of coffee or cappuccino. Well, not completely anyways.

Could it have been that weird phone call he had gotten during the meeting? And if so, what the hell was going on that was so important? He wondered as he followed Tony out of the stairway to the thirtieth floor, where he kept his lab and a few other places that were mostly off limits to the rest of the Avenger's, for security reasons.

Something that Steve had never held against Tony, he was after all a genius inventor. And half of the stuff he developed was to face new threats and never-before-seen villains.

Tony didn't even notice him slipping into his lab right behind him and stood there in the door way for a good ten minutes watching Tony bounce back and forth from one side of the room to the other as he grabbed a few gadgets, a briefcase that he then walked over to a safe that he kept hidden in the wall of his lab (when did that even get there?) and began to put money, credit cards, gold bars-

"Uh...Tony?"

The man didn't respond so either he didn't hear him or he was flat out ignoring him. Which was a stupid thing to do since Steve was beginning to think that feds were going to be storming the building any minute now to arrest his friend.

Which was...mildly alarming to say the least. Seriously though, did he rob a fucking bank or something? Sure he knew that Tony had money, but why keep some in a safe?

It couldn't be an emergency fund. Tony would never limit himself with what he considered to be 'pennies'. He would _literally_ rather die first. So Steve could only assume that the mysterious phone call had something to do with this... _weirdness_...

And then things went a little bit too far- when Tony pulled out- a semi automatic hand gun and then grabbed the clip and popped the thing into place like a pro and then placed it inside of the briefcase and then closed it just as Steve reached him and yanked the case out of his hands.

* * *

Willow stepped out of the hotel bathroom with a towel wrapped around her petite frame and stepped up to the mirror hanging on the wall of the room that she had rented upon finally arriving and took a good look at herself.

She'd had to alter her appearance a bit since escaping from her father's home this morning. For instance, her once near rear length red hair had been cut to just below her shoulders in a straight bob, and her naturally red hair had been dyed a reddish blond color that would be easy to change back later on.

She'd stopped by her local bank and gotten out several thousand dollars since she had needed enough to live on for a little while. After which she had ditched the car that she was using, gone shopping for necessities and clothing. After that she had taken rented a car and then gone to a hotel as far away from her father's home as possible.

To be perfectly honest, she wasn't all that sure what to do now.

Sure some people had broken into her father's home, and she _had_ taken percautions to keep herself hidden. But at the moment she wasn't completely sure if it was utterly necessary or not.

Was she maybe being a little bit paranoid? Or did she really have to worry about those thugs trying to actually hunt her down?


End file.
